In Praise of Prestidigitation

The celebrated Magic Castle in Hollywood is home to the Academy of Magical Arts and features magicians who perform nightly in various showrooms throughout the haunted Victorian mansion. The most difficult trick at the Magic Castle, a private club since 1963, is just getting in; one must be a member or know a member to be admitted. We asked a few old hands what’s up their sleeves.

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William Henry “Billy” McComb

Magician, 81

Hollywood

What’s your specialty?

I try to do good sleight-of-hand magic. I have about 50 basic tricks. I’ve done about 30 movies and probably over 1,000 TV shows.

How did you become a magician?

I never remember a time when I wasn’t doing it. To please my mother I became a doctor. I gave her the diploma and told her, ‘I’m done with medicine.’ I wanted to pursue magic.

Tell us some secret magician lingo.

I say, “He’s doing Asrah.” That means a levitation invented by Servais LeRoy. You place a girl on a couch and cover her with a sheet. She levitates and you pass a hoop over the top. As you pull the sheet she disappears. She usually shows up at the back of the audience. That’s called Asrah.

What is the hardest trick to pull off?

If your mechanism is not working properly, you’ve got a problem. It may be the London Palladium with 3,500 [people] and you’re standing there with jam on your face.

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Robert Busch

Energy manager at Warner Bros. Studios, 54

Burbank

What’s your specialty?

Close-up magic. Mostly cards, coins, etc. Mostly hand tricks.

Tell us some secret magician lingo.

A “move” is a sleight that makes the trick work. Like an “Elmsley” is a way of counting cards that gives you the desired result.

What was the first trick you saw?

A gentleman named Albert Goshman [who] kept vanishing a coin under a salt shaker and it would reappear. The man was incredible.

One of your more memorable gigs?

I performed at a nudist colony, Elysian Fields. Two of us did it. They could see there’s definitely nothing up the sleeve.

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James Dimmare

Magician, 42

Toluca Lake

What’s your specialty?

Dove magic.

How did you become a magician?

My father [did] tricks but never performed. When I was 13 I read a Houdini book and surprised my father by duplicating a trick my father did.

Is there a magician personality type?

There’s some need for attention. I was small and the class clown.

Do magicians gossip?

Oh, my God, unbelievably. Magicians are the worst for that. There are so many art forms and there’s envy.

What’s the hardest trick to pull off?

Taking a woman’s brassiere off without her knowing it.

Give us some secret magician lingo.

“BC” means “Before [David] Copperfield.”

Your worst gig ever?

In Vancouver, 1973. I was 13. The Number Five Orange was a burlesque club in an area called Gastown. They were throwing stuff at the strippers so you can imagine the stuff I had to deal with.

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Whitney “Whit” Haydn

Magician, 54

Glassell Park

What’s your specialty?

Close-up magic and comedy.

How did you become a magician?

I started when I was 10. I wasted the first nine years of my life. I had a talent for fraud and deception.

Do magicians gossip?

Sure. We sit here and talk shop. Things like, “Is David Blaine destroying magic or saving it?”

Tell us some secret magician lingo.

A “pass” is a move with the cards where half the deck is cut with no one seeing it. It’s called “cutting a pack.”

First trick you ever saw?

At summer camp. A Methodist minister did linking rings and cutting the rope. I stayed up all night trying to figure it out. It was the first time I had ever spent focused in such intense creative thought.

Your biggest foul-up?

I was cutting my now ex-wife into three pieces on stage. She was in an upright box. The blade caught her leotard. I opened the box and she was topless to the waist and bleeding down the middle. It was hard to recover from that.